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Robert Peel Brooks (1853–1882)

Robert Peel Brooks was one of
Richmond's first African American lawyers and a Republican Party leader. Born into slavery, he was manumitted in 1862 and graduated from Howard
University's law school in 1875. While practicing law in Richmond he also edited the Richmond
Virginia Star. Brooks became involved in politics and was elected secretary
of the Republican State Central Committee in 1880. Initially siding with the Funders,
who advocated full payment of the state's prewar debt, he came to support the Readjusters, who sought
adjustment of the debt, because they promoted black political participation. He
contracted typhoid fever in 1882 and died not long before his twenty-ninth
birthday. MORE...

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Brooks was born into slavery in Richmond on October 29, 1853, the sixth of at least
nine children of Albert Royal
Brooks and Lucy Goode
Brooks. His parents, owned by different masters, struggled to keep their
family together. After Lucy Goode Brooks's master died in 1858, she found local buyers for the four eldest children,
and Albert Brooks persuaded a tobacco
merchant to buy his wife and their other children. Permitted to hire his time, Albert Brooks
managed to save $800, with which he bought his wife and younger children. Robert Peel
Brooks was accordingly manumitted on October 21, 1862.

Freedom for the remaining
members of his family did not come until 1865 and the defeat of the Confederacy. Even
while a slave, Albert Brooks had established a successful livery business, and he
invested in the education of his younger sons. In 1865 Robert Peel Brooks and his
elder brother, Walter
Henderson Brooks, later a well-known Baptist minister in Washington, D.C.,
entered a school in Richmond sponsored by the New-England Freedmen's Aid Society.
Later that year the brothers attended the Wilberforce Institute in Carolina,
Washington County, Rhode Island, and they entered Lincoln University in Chester
County, Pennsylvania, in 1866. They graduated in 1871, and Robert Peel Brooks went on
to study law at Howard University in Washington, D.C.

Peel Brooks, as his friends called him, graduated from Howard's law school in the
class of 1875 and qualified in January 1876 to practice law before the Henrico County
Court and the Richmond City Hustings Court. He was one of the first African American
lawyers to practice in Richmond. The first, Walter G. Wynn, also a Howard graduate, qualified before
the court in 1871 but moved from Richmond soon thereafter. Two other Howard-trained
lawyers joined Brooks in Richmond. William Cabell Roane was a boyhood friend, and
Henry B. Fry was a classmate who
became Brooks's partner until his departure for Arkansas in 1880. The trio
contributed occasional pieces about Richmond to the People's
Advocate, an Alexandria newspaper published by blacks. In the issue of May
13, 1876, Roane reported that the white lawyers and judges in Richmond were
"gentlema[n]ly and polite, and treat them in all respects like the white members of
the bar."

In March 1877 a group of Richmond blacks started the Richmond
Virginia Star, a newspaper that existed for at least five years. The fact
that only eleven issues are known to survive makes it impossible to determine exactly
when Brooks became the paper's editor. His name was on the masthead by the end of
1878, and except for a brief hiatus early in 1880, when he reported on Richmond's
African American community for the white Richmond Southern
Intelligencer, Brooks served as editor of the Virginia
Star for at least two years and probably longer.

Those years saw turmoil in state politics, as
Virginians who were determined to ease the burden of the state's huge prewar debt
organized as the Readjusters in opposition to the Funders, who were adamant that the
debt be paid in full. The dispute divided both the white Democratic Party and the Republican Party. During
an 1879 election campaign in which the Readjusters triumphed, Brooks traveled the
state advocating full payment of the debt, though he remained a Republican. At Petersburg, before an audience that
included numerous white Funders, he denounced the Democratic Party for its efforts to
eliminate blacks from politics. On May 1, 1880, Brooks was elected secretary of the
Republican State Central Committee.

By then Brooks had concluded that the hostility of white Democrats required blacks,
for their own "self-defense" and "self-respect," to support the Readjusters. In
Petersburg on March 14, 1881, a convention of African American leaders endorsed a
coalition with the Readjusters. Brooks did not attend, but he was present in Lynchburg in August when the
Republican Party convened. After some Republicans rejected a coalition and left the
convention, Brooks led the rest of the party into the Readjuster camp and then
canvassed the state in that autumn's election campaign. Friends sought his
appointment as United States district attorney afterward in appreciation for these
efforts but were unsuccessful.

Brooks maintained his law practice and also gave
legal instruction to James
Highland Hayes, later a member of the Richmond city council. Robert Peel
Brooks had engaged to marry a Miss Jennings, but in September 1882, already ill with
tuberculosis, he contracted typhoid fever and after a month's struggle died at his
mother's home in Richmond on October 10, 1882, not long before his twenty-ninth
birthday. He was buried in Union Mechanics Cemetery, one of Richmond's Barton Heights
cemeteries. Brooks's reputation as a lawyer and orator outlasted his short career. A
year after his death, the Alexandria journalist Magnus L. Robinson credited a young lawyer with
"that element of 'push' and 'tact' that characterized the late lamented R. Peel
Brooks." As late as May 26, 1934, a correspondent for the Richmond
Planet listed Brooks as one of the city's ten greatest blacks.

Time Line

October 29, 1853
- Robert P. Brooks is born into slavery in Richmond, the sixth of at least nine children of Albert R. Brooks and Lucy Goode Brooks.

1858
- Lucy Goode Brooks's master dies. To ensure that the family is not dispersed, she finds local buyers for her four eldest children. Her husband, Albert R. Brooks, successfully convinces a tobacco merchant to buy Lucy Goode Brooks and their remaining children.

October 21, 1862
- Following the receipt of $800 from Albert Brooks, Daniel Von Groning, a tobacco merchant and diplomat, frees Lucy Goode Brooks and her young children, including Robert Peel Brooks.

1865
- Robert Peel Brooks and his elder brother, Walter Henderson Brooks, enter a school in Richmond sponsored by the New-England Freedmen's Aid Society. Later that year they attend the Wilberforce Institute in Carolina, Washington County, Rhode Island.

1871
- Robert Peel Brooks and his elder brother, Walter Henderson Brooks, graduate from Lincoln University in Chester County, Pennsylvania, where they matriculated in 1866.

1875
- Robert Peel Brooks graduates from the law school at Howard University in Washington, D.C.

January 1876
- Robert Peel Brooks qualifies to practice law before the Henrico County Court and the Richmond City Hustings Court, making him one of the first African American lawyers to practice to Richmond.

March 1877
- A group of Richmond blacks start the Richmond Virginia Star, a newspaper that will exist for at least five years. Robert Peel Brooks serves as its editor for at least two years.

May 1, 1880
- Robert Peel Brooks is elected secretary of the Republican State Central Committee.

October 10, 1882
- After a month's struggle with tuberculosis and typhoid fever, Robert Peel Brooks dies at his mother's home in Richmond. He is buried in Richmond's Union Mechanics Cemetery.

May 26, 1934
- A correspondent for the Richmond Planet lists Robert Peel Brooks as one of the city's ten greatest blacks.